This is Andrew Hovell's blog. He lives in Northern England. He plans for a living. He likes tea

November 14, 2016

You probably know about many of the failings of the human brain. Here's two:

1. You'll know that the memory is flawed, and we only remember the extra ordinary. So we only remember the times a train was early or late, not the majority if times the train was on time, so the memory thinks trains are 'always late'.

2. You'll know about confirmation bias, where filter out information that conflicts with our beliefs and pounce on the stuff that reinforces it. So immigration can be good or bad, depending on what you believe.

Yet when it comes to the job, we seem to forget all this.

How else could 95% of advertising be utter dross, the ordinary that no one notices? How else could it be that any category has most of the creative work looking exactly the same, and put in the same media at the same time? It's the everyday vanilla.

Why else would we pounce on the IPA Databank? A small sample of work that is there because it was believed to be effective and someone has spent the money to prove it? 90% of our output is not in this, because it didn't work, or the evidence doesn't fit IPA requirements. We jump on stuff like 'Fame and emotion are the most efficient strategies' when actually, it's more like, the rest of what's out there is so bad, doing stuff that is simply not the equivalent of trains just being on time, average, not noticeable, works. Go Compare's singing tosser works because you might hate it, but you can't ignore it. But we leap on the evidence that fits our belief that creativity and 'great work' is the only game in town. It's incredibly powerful, but the uncomfortable truth is that the DFS ads we all hate actually work.

How else could you have compelling arguments that TV advertising no longer works, and equally compelling arguments that it's become more effective? Confirmation bias, that's how.

I get bored with people using John Lewis Christmas as evidence that TV, Fame and Emotion work amazingly. When they happened to work IN THIS CASE.

Just as I get bored with folks citing that Pepsi in the UK shows how TV ads are a waste of time now, it's all about video and social (it was in THIS case, it won't be in another).

By all means, use the evidence that's in the sweetspot of what you think the client should buy to make money and what makes you money (awards, big spend etc) but don't believe your own hype.

Put another way, if you tell enough untruths, or let's be kind, selective truths you eventually believe it yourself.

November 11, 2016

I'll never forget a comment from former boss in 2008. "I like recessions, it means you can squeeze more out your people".

I'll let you decide on the moral implications of that comment.

But from a more practical perspective, while young people feel they have a strong work ethic, the pay and predictability of working in any kind of agency means it's just not the attraction it once was.

You have to be sure you like working with colourful, you have to like variety and not want to know precisely what you're doing this afternoon, let alone tomorrow. And, as The Rules State, you have to toughen up. Feedback is freely given, deadlines and changes of direction mean there will be out of hours working and stress, that's the job, that's the way it is.

So it needs to be as fun, interesting and fulfilling as possible.

Not made harder.

It's also the job of management to make sure their people are happy, that there is no unnecessary stress and people are allowed to flourish in their own way.

That wasn't the case with this boss and the organisation, which is why it's crawling into obsolescence. It was a place where your face had to fit, where the only way of doing things was One Way, and working 12 hour days was a badge of pride and a way to get acceptance, rather than an admission of not being efficient.

That won't cut it today, and, underneath the rubbish about the death of advertising etc, is why many creative agencies are not the robust species they used to be....they only get to hire one kind of person, the kind mad enough to give up their lives for work. That kind of person is rarer and rarer, and not that good at creativity, as ideas come from drawing new connections between a mind full of experiences and references, not trying a new variety of the same approach.

October 18, 2016

It's something folks in cycling use a lot, where you micro manage the detail, so lots of little changes add up to a whole lot of difference.

It's kind of like Pointillism of you like your metaphors - where the school of painting led by Pisarro etc created a style of painting where the imagery is created by painstakingly building up a series of dots (centuries before pixels).

I had this kind of thing going on when I was swimming, you would not believe the difference pointing your hand down, keeping it nice and stiff, makes when your hand enters the water on the freestyle stroke.

But it can work in reverse. I've had all sorts of problems in my knee after cycling thousands of miles with seat set forward about 10 mm too far. No impact over a few miles, but over the time, a little has become lot and the resulting left glute weakness (in relation to the right) has caused all sorts of problems. 10 mm, that's all.

Now, I'll talk to you about a little discussion I had with a creative over a press ad a few years back. I wouldn't back down over three minor points with the headline and the copy. Because it didn't make watertight sense.

The response I got was, "But people don't analyse ads the way we do, it doesn't matter". I was a bit shocked, as I have grown up with good creatives who pick up work, tear it to bits and shake it around until nothing loose falls out.

But anyway, he actually proved my point. People don't spend time with ads, if they don't feel right, they won't bother to work out why, they'll move on.

But I let it go. It was the first developed execution in a campaign. When they tried to work up the other scamps, they got into all sorts of mess, those little loose threads became gaping holes.

This is why best in class comms planning is essential. It's not good having amazing big ideas, if you haven't worked out what you need to do to bring them to life - the barriers to making it work, the key things that need to happen. Look at this to see what I mean http://www.slideshare.net/juliancole/what-is-comms-planning

It's why another way to get good ideas is to have lots of observations about things, then look for the links and try and recombine them. Ideas are really recombinations of existing stuff. Big flashes of insight are hard, but hard work is actually easier.

I'm saying that big ideas are fine, but we should celebrate the people who make them actually work and make sure everything is watertight before we go too far.

Otherwise a little hole can become a gaping chasm.

I guess I'm saying the big ideas people are essential, but so are the details folk that br

September 12, 2016

My little children are getting into Star Wars. For someone who was brought up in the 70s and 80s this is an intense joy.

To misquote a couple of lines from Fever Pitch, there isn't anything that many people have loved for over thirty years as consistently as some people my age have loved Star Wars.

If anyone needs to learn how to earn disproportionate attention and measure of loyalty from people, looking at Star Wars is actually a good place to start. Both in terms of what to do do, and what not. Not to mention the things you shouldn't bother to attempt.

Create something totally jaw-droppingly different - the moment in a New Hope when the Star Destroyer first thunders onto the screen is not something they were ever able to repeat. The sheer shock and awe of it completely captured the imagination. It's the same with advertising these days, your first job is to get noticed.

But don't think you'll ever create a Star Destroyer moment. An Old Spice guy comes around once a blue moon. In fact, so does a Star Destroyer moment. Movies that really succeed seer themselves in the collective psyche. Ads that succeed manage to get noticed and remembered for something.

But stand on the shoulders of giants - George Lucas was smart and borrowed from World War 2 dog fights, Darth Vader's suits was based on Samurai armour.

But if you don't engage the heart, forget it - arguably, there was more action, more effects, more everything in the 'prequels' but they're hated by most original fans because they forgot to put any relatable humanity, let alone a sense of humour.

Never forget what you do best - because it was the characters that people loved. not just the shock and awe. The original characters were funny, has real relationships, you had Han Solo with a twinkle in his eye and feisty Princess Leia. Always build from what buyers already like about you, don't try and make it what YOU want it to be. A certain hair care brand I worked on desperately wanted people to love them as a fashion icon, when actually they loved as a brand that really understood women. By associating themselves with stick thin, sulky models they just put people off! If you are a brand and you lose your way, it's so much harder to come back. People were willing Star Wars to be good, no one REALLY wants a brand to reclaim it's former glory. That wasn't the case for WISPA before you mention it by the way, that was just a meme that took on a life of it's own.

But challenge your audience - The Empire Strikes Back threw the first film back in our faces and let the bad guys in, not to mention the ultimate curve ball and created one of the biggest entertainment surprises ever -"Luke, I am your father".

Keep your core but move with the times - JJ Abrams maybe went a bit too far with this. On top of very human characters, some great humour and icons like the Falcon, X Wings Tie fighters and whatever, you still got the unknown character on desert planet thrown into a quest by accident. You got the planer sized weapon they had to destroy at the end. But then again, you had the strong female lead to reflect how we live today, the vulnerable conflicted male lead, even the sad older characters reflecting on loss and what might have been.

Don't be afraid to leave space for the audience - let's be clear, people want to work out who Rey's parents are, they don't want to work out what your ad is about, but the best work still let's the audience translate and work out stuff a little bit. We don't like culture spoon-fed anymore. No one really knew if Darth Vader was a robot or what in the first film, certainly in the first hour. It's more so these days - who the hell is Snoke? Where did Rey come from? How did Ren convert? La di dah.

Create different levels for different buyers. I have never read a Star Wars book, but I'm interested enough to have found out the background on Palpatine's origins. Others have read hundreds of books, commented on forums, gone to conventions. Most of the money comes from a long tail of people who just watch the films and buy a few toys for their kids. Other kids will only use Star Wars characters on Disney Infinity. I don't totally buy the Byron Sharpe stuff that growth just comes from light buyers and that it's weak awareness. I also think it's about intense emotion that gets encoded into the memory - triggers that come up from the subconscious at the right time. You can get people to buy more if their frequency is really low, if you build emotional presence. I can't tell you really why Nike is different, but I can tell you it feels different and has come from years of emotional build up. Anyway, in both cases, aim for mass popularity, but enable folks to go further. In the case of the Force Awakens, the geeks (and semi geeks) went to the first showing and that sense of 'the hardcore fans like it, so it must be good enough to bother' meant the rest followed. Most brands simply feel okay to buy, much of that these days comes from seeing other people buying and following suit.

Respect your audience. Let's be honest, lots of children liked the prequels, many liked Jar Jar Binks, but the overall discourse was that they weren't any good. George didn't care,"This is the story I want to tell". Sometimes when they say they want a faster horse, well, you should listen.

Remove reasons not to buy. Star Wars rebels the cartoon is great, my kids loves it (to Evie the new movie is 'Star Wars Rebels the Force Awakens). The latest Clone Wars series is amazing, and amazingly builds on the prequels. In both cases you've got Darth Maul, who fans actually loved. Star Wars doing TV well should have been a no brainer, the increased revenue, the increased presence. Just as McDonalds needed to do salads and chicken to defend against health foods and KFC. Just as soft drinks need to diversify into sugar free and more adult versions to keep market share.

September 05, 2016

If you haven't read John Steele's Perfect Pitch yet, you should. It's really good and there is something to learn for everyone.

But it has a fatal flaw, as do most marketing type books, it exists in the land of perfect.Or at least the land where you have three months and unlimited research budget. He's candid that process is a myth, and the killer idea comes out of the ether at some point.

But still, it's to get real. In a follow on from The Rules, here's the rules of pitching (tongue in cheek and of course).

An obvious one is get the detail right. You'll find typos in here, as usual, as you'll see from the lack of posting, I'm dead busy (pitching!).

Don't finish 'the deck' until the latest moment possible. It doesn't matter how long you have to do the pitch, you'll still be fiddling with powerpoint at midnight the night before. There are two possible reasons. The first is the most common, no one really does much of value on a pitch until the moment (a couple of days before mostly) when you realise you've done nothing of value and you're screwed unless you pull a couple of all nighters. The other, extremely devious, is that some bright spark knows that the more time, plus the more people, available for tinkering with a deck, the more it will suffer death of a thousand cuts and end up nothing like it should have..until someone changes it all back at 11.48pm. That's right, you're here at the witching hour because you're totally disorganised, or you are more cunning than a fox and understand the destructive nature of constant meddling.

Read the bloody brief. Let's be clear, pitch briefs are not worth the paper they're written on. Usually ten pages long, you'll think the only thing of worth is the box at the end titled 'budget'. Your first instinct will be to ignore the brief, but this is the road to abject failure. Someone has spent hours writing something with some killer information and then tried to be really helpful and giving you acres of more detail - burying the real brief by accident. It's a bit that quote from Sliding Doors,"I'm not going to tell you what I want, but I reserve the right to eviscerate you if don't get it".

Planners get the pizza. When the actual work starts, two days prior to the pitch, there will be one individuals who everyone hates the most. Yep, it's the strategist. After two weeks failing to get an internal brief signed off, thanks to 'input' from the usual pitch committee and the fact no one liked the first three drafts, everyone is blaming you for hell they're currently living. What's making it worse is the fact you don't have much to do now. You've interfered in the creative a bit, or really annoyed the TV planners by asking for a groovy spot partnership they really don't want to do. You've even managed to do your strategy charts in 5 slides without a single graph. So now you're twiddling your thumbs, watching everyone work. So get the pizza in, it's the only thing that can save your relationships. Unless you win the pitch that is.

Make yourself teflon. You might be 'a team' but when you lose someone will get the blame. Make sure it isn't you. This the only use of senior agency folk. At the right time that is. Show them the strategy as late as possible, leave in a glaring error, let them correct you and think they thought of the whole thing themselves. Show them the deck as late as possible, with another error. Same tactic. The response of the whole team can then be "The CEO signed off on the whole thing". Of course, the CEO will say they took a helicopter view and didn't look at the detail. So you'll need a Plan B. Step forward the internal workshop......

Use the internal workshop defensively (time for the dark arts of planning) . This is the planners best chance of avoiding the firing line if things go wrong and being the golden child if you win. We all work in agencies now where planning isn't a job title, we're all planners apparently. So do an internal strategy workshop. Don't bother doing any strategy work first, just go through the brief and some early thoughts. If you do some thinking, everyone will shoot it down, because we're all planners now. So draw out all the bad thinking, write a strategy that's good and make it look like it came from the session...and pick the fall guy who will have 'nailed the big thinking' if you lose the pitch. If you win, take credit for everything. Win, win.

Find out how boring you are. The problem with all those internal reviews and rehearsals is that you're preaching to the converted. The kind of people that are happy to listen to someone talking about brand onions v wheels for twenty minutes, the kind who love to chat about the difference between a bottom up plan or top down. This is not your client. Present to your Mum, wife, partner whatever, or at least someone who isn't involved, see if they get it, how bored they are and how you sound in your head while you're doing it. Trust me, you'll make it shorter and cut out a mountain of rubbish.

Everyone does the same stuff. Everyone does store visits, every one does some extra research. Everyone is pretty good at what they do. All the agency decks will be variations on the same theme. How on earth will get their attention and win them over? Start by making it shorter. Don't create the deck that makes you really clever, start with the story that will win hearts and minds.

Winning can mean losing. Sometimes you're so desperate to win, you'll promise the earth. sometimes there are clients that get taken in by a glitzy presentation. Just remember, they'll expect you to follow through, and when you let them down, they won't forgive you. There are plenty of agencies who are great at winning pitches but rubbish at keeping clients. Don't be one of them.

Bribery always fails in the end. There's always an agency that will undercut the other. Some will even do it for free for a year or something. Imagine the respect people will have for people who value what they do so little they're afraid of charging for it. It's not even worth the brief glow of PR - not when you lose it and it makes a bigger splash then.

Ignore every other pitch you've done. Look, it's hard enough managing the conflicting enthusiasms of the pitch team, when folks inevitably start firing presentations from the past that went okay, it really isn't helpful. What worked there will not work here. Different client, different organisation, different team. And, let's face it, it won't have been the 'deck' what won it, it will have been some chemistry between the team and the client and massive piece of luck. One pitch I was part of was successful purely because we picked a fantastic piece of music for the TV.

Don't get too full of yourself. That's right, most pitches are a lottery. So don't get all excited when you win and don't throw around your big win on the next pitch, it will count for next to nothing,

Leave stuff out. If you want to create a conversation on the day (and you should) leave out the data or the evidence. Just tell them how it is and when they pull you up on it, thank them for asking you and proceed to discuss the facts you have remembered, or noted down. They'll think you know what you're talking about, and won't be numbed by graph after graph. Win, win.

Shut the hell up. You're throwing your best stuff at folks. You want to impress them. You're nervous. So you talk fast, project with confidence and leave no time for people to keep up. Leave space for your big points. Leave space for conversation. Try and create it.

Never press for feedback. I lost a pitch because we pressed the kind of organisation for their early thoughts at the end of the meeting. They hadn't any chance to collect their thoughts. Three people were complimentary and gave general pointers about what they liked. Someone else spend 10 minutes going through a ton of small points, stuff he was saying for something to say, he got every else talking, they got more and more negative and you could see them talking themselves out working with us in front of your eyes.

Avoid tissue meetings. They're the devil. What fool invented these? Probably someone who hated agencies. You have to turn up with a half baked set of ideas, plans, concepts, strategic directions. You can't go full gas, or you'll have nothing to reveal on the big day. You can't show nothing, or they'll be underwhelmed. Somehow you need to reveal stuff and also keep it back. While giving yourself the chance of getting a bum steer and getting it wrong from a client who will change their mind, even worse, you're making yourself to the work too early, now, not only have you ages for meddling CEO's and the like to change lots of stuff, you've given the client the chance - because loads of tissue sessions don't have the organ grinder, just the monkey. Same with Q&A sessions. If you're not meeting the authority to buy, don't bother.

Pick a team that like each other. Hopefully you can put together a group of people that get along . Harder than it sounds in some places I know (and accept no one will like the planner). Clients buy teams, if they get a good vibe,it can outweigh everything else. If you can't get a bunch of people together that don't despise each other, rehearse to death so it looks like they do.

Ban the CEO who says 'enjoy it' . As the troops go off into battle, there is always some fool who will say, "Just enjoy it". If you enjoy a pitch presentation, you're either insane or complacent, probably both. It's stressful, it's pressured, you need to be on top of your game. It is many things, enjoyable is not one of them.

Always go to the pub after. It's just what you do. Remember you're short of sleep and knackered, the drink will go to your head. There's nothing worse than winning pitch and then getting fired for telling your bosses what you really think of them because you drank your beer too quick.

Observe correct casting. Every pitch needs a pitch leader, someone who can make decisions, a benign dictator - not someone who can only dictate. The people who actually implement stuff - the creative folks, the TV buyer for example, make sure they have to go. These people can be quite glacial, especially when they know the pressure is on you. Tell them they're coming and they'll melt like warm Nutella, and also work that little bit harder. Now isn't the time to be nice thought, if someone can't present, don't let them come.

No bullet points. You don't want them to read stuff, you want them to be looking at you and your team. Charts should illustrate what you're saying, not get in the way.

Lots of pictures, less words. Pitches are done by committee.You will argue over words, even A WORD. It's harder to dismiss a picture that can carry a few general points.

July 19, 2016

"The brand will be a very small part of the target customers' lives. What's the rest of it like?"

"Where does the brand fit in? Where could the brand fit in?"

At least it's realistic about the role of brands. But it doesn't really reflect how people buy stuff, or that's what I think.

People still buy products, brands are a much values short-cut to choosing. But people care about them much less than we tend to think.

I'm not going to beat anyone around the head with Byron Sharpe, but let's just dwell on the fact that most buyers couldn't tell you why the brand they buy is different and buy others anyway.

I think the focal point of any brief is knowing how or why people buy the category. What goes through their mind when they're buying it?

For example. if you're selling cars, are you selling sports cars? If so, you need to know how people who are not buyers view the product and brand. A sports car is mostly a badge, you need to know what that badge says to others.

While an MPV buyer is probably looking for a trade off between space and something that doesn't feel like a bus to drive. They'll divide between those who don't give a monkeys what others think and those that don't want to look like they've 'given up' on life beyond parenting.

With sportscars, you'll probably be looking for 'positive wastage' and getting the product in front of folks who won't buy but will judge.

With MPV's you're talking to the practical person a lot more. Maybe.

If you're selling soft drinks, brands are huge of course, but belief in taste, increasingly sugar levels and what it might go with (food for example) matter also. You can have a well loved soft drinks brand with sales falling because folks believe it will make them fat and think the sugar free option tastes rubbish.

July 07, 2016

Few entries seduced with a nicely articulated, well designed, intriguing story. All tended to follow the same path with the same insights and the same perspective. Sure, some found an interesting angle - and that's to be congratulated - but many seemed to ignore the fact they only have 400,000, he doesn't think you can do a massive campaign with that.

He thought it was good that someone pushed back to save their money - but there needed to be an alternative approach, It can be good to take a stand in terms of what can be done, in any case, but he thought the only real sacrifice made was not going after larger drinkers but those already interested in craft beer.

My overall view is as follows......

This was HARD. But it's also representative of many briefs I get these days. Do more on less budget, do comms planning, brand thinking and media all in one.

So I think everyone did well operating so far out of there comfort zone.

Very well done.

I agree with Rob that, with an open format, I was hoping for some great storytelling, some submissions that stirred my emotions. I applaud those that took the time to build some theatre, make it visually interesting and draw me in. Not everyone did this. I hate it when clients ask for a document rather than a conversation, but in large client companies, not just global ones like Sam Adams, you'll find that even when you get a good face to face, you need to enable your client to explain and excite another authority to buy.

I don't entirely agree with Rob about giving up on the task or what folks have done with the budget. I agree that one or two have got over-excited about what might be possible, but that's okay for folks starting out that might not work in the UK, or have massive experience of dealing with media budgets. Some of the more experienced folks have done pretty solid realistic plans.

But that's part of some other questions.

First, you can't avoid having to reach as much of the market as possible. I thought a number of folks defined a sensible audience and many planned for some decent reach, but within the plans there didn't seem to be the required planning for 'talk value'. On a budget like this, the mix of media and content needs to punch above it's weight and build talk value. Few stated the need for fame, some did, but much of the fame planning didn't seem to relate back to the brand.

Also, a great media plan, especially one on tight budget needs a big jumping off point, a core content idea that everything will hang off. I thought too many plans had lots of phasing and different ideas, rather than one big theme everything would riff off.

When I worked on IRN-BRU for the Scottish Commonwealth Games, we had about an 8th of the budgets of other sponsors. Yes we could afford TV, but that worked more as two bookends to lots of integrated activity built one idea: we would celebrate that through the highs and lows (mostly lows) the Scottish support their national teams through thick and thin (IRN-BRU is Scotland's 'other' national drink and fortifies it's drinkers).

I wondered if anyone might have just concentrated on London, as well as some good work on a tighter audience.

I wondered if anyone might have done with the fact that the original Boston in in Lincolnshire.

I wondered what you might do with just focusing on one channel, like YouTube, including Vloggers.

I wondered about phasing. Would it be most efficient to do just one thing quieter periods - the run up or after the games?

For 400,000 you could have mixed outdoor and social media and focused on UK cities (craft beer is very metropolitan)

In terms of talk value and brand relevance, many talked about US v UK, which is solid, but I was frustrated that so many had some really golden discoveries and observations about the brand, the founder and other stuff didn't follow through.

I thought quite a few got caught out by relating stuff back to the Olympics, and didn't push this bit hard enough.....The Boston roots, that view about doing what you love and the link between passion and performance.

Seriously, lots and lots of gold, everyone just missed out on following it all through.

Now, everyone, I mean everyone, has at least one piece of greatness in their submission. Most had a lot more.

So, a winner. Hard, as I say, lots of things stood out from lots of people. You should all be pleased with yourself (but take on board the feedback!!).

It's going to be Hugo.

Because I could articulate your media strategy in a sentence and it's doable for the budget I think.

Few talked about the thorny issue of decent content and Vice is a neat solution - and the network planned for the right context could be good.

I do wish you had thought of your audience more, it's why you nearly didn't win. Watch that.

But I could explain your whole presentation to someone the easiest and while I got a bit bored with everyone doing the UKvUSA thing, you managed to do something more fresh and though provoking with it.

I do agree it could piss people off, but the first task of brand communications is to get noticed, this would. Tonally it feels kind of highbrow and self selecting..........you need to get the irony and with a nudge it could knowingly take the piss out of intellectual Boston types more than just out of the UK. It could have depth.

As your planning director, I'd be saying ditch the sampling and instead have trial assampling part of the story.

But this, along with the feedback above and knowing Vice would build on it anyway, it's the one I could work with the most and see some great development coming out.

As I said, it was close, and I've been hard on others for not enough audience work, whereas you've done none at all, but this is the one that would get noticed and an interesting, but sensible plan for the budget.

Mail me your address and a little something will be in the post.

Final piece of feedback, to you Hugo, but everyone. Don't put sampling in a response unless you KNOW the client can afford it. The cost of free samples for drinks usually outweighs the marketing budget by a staggering amount!

July 06, 2016

Gareth liked the way you built your strategy like the brewing process, along with the sheer simplicity of the challenges. However, there was a question if ‘earned media’ was really a task. Great argument for Vice as a partner – but a few questions on the proposition and creative approach. While Rob felt worried about how your plans would work against the actual budget. He liked the core idea but wondered about the execution. The US v UK thing has been done by others (great minds think alike?) but he felt your tone here was fresher (great advertising stuff sometimes does the generic in a way that no one else has!!). But he wondered if it was credible for the brand and bit ‘lager’. But, and this is something that hasn’t come through in many submissions, you can’t achieve much quietly on the budget. Is it just ‘hijacking the Olympics? Maybe, nut it feels fresh he thinks.

Now, I also like your theme – brewing a strategy. There are too many ‘bullet points’ in general in the submissions and this creates a great storytelling hook. I love the barriers and task structure..always think this works well. My only quibble is that you tasks feel like tactics rather than juicy tasks. Rather than sampling, I wonder if trial should be the tasks – or at least belief in the product. My own view is that sampling won’t reach enough folks, but peer review on the product might. Now I don’t know at this stage if sampling is part of a wider communications framework (get people to try it and then broadcast that to more people) but it’s not the right time to be so specific! Same with earned media, that feels like a very generic task, as opposed to ‘get talked about’ to Rob’s point. But consideration, or salience feels right.

Now, word on storytelling, you then go on to make three key points – authenticity/counter culture, that great part about being part of the US revolution and the UK/US thing. Now boil that down into clear guiding opportunity. There is something rich about counter culture, revolution and the US/UK thing….and a bigger jumping off point than the American beer you hate to love. You narrow things down too quickly.

BUT…I react to it, so it has talkablility. But salience is about getting talked about for the right reasons – I wonder if this is just a little too polarising and ‘advertisingy’. I want something that communicated quality and is part of the Olympics, so far the Olympics is the elephant in the room.

I agree with Rob that your Sam Adams tourist idea is fresh and suddenly transforms UK v US, but I need you to set it up a bit more. And my own view is that brand work in a passive way, there is a risk he’ll just piss people off, it would need to be really funny.

Now Vice Media is a great partner, it’s watertight and will smash this kind of thing out of the park, but I wonder if you’re trying to do too much with the money. Great media planning here though. You’ve cracked ‘scale and cut-through’ (but maybe overspent) in your thinking and plan…I just fear you might create the wrong kind of talk value, and you seem to have missed a true connection to the brand’s revolutionary history and to the Olympics.

That said, the first task of a campaign these days is to be noticed, I dare say it will do that. I just don’t think people will adopt you if you have a go at them.

Elaine

Rob said this made lots of sense. But the strength was also a challenge – it’s great to show proficiency in the job, and interesting for interesting sake is a big no no. But maybe it’s a little too much what others might do. He was excited by the point that it’s one of the biggest craft brewers –which means comfort in scale – the craft beer you can’t get wrong (let’s be honest, most craft beer is obscure, over priced and tastes bloody awful!!!). But he wonders if diligence has overcome a major role for planning…..it needs to inspire others to go to interesting places, be that media owners, creatives, media buyers, digital planners or even clients!

Gareth thought there was something interesting on being on the side of the little guy…but it’s maybe tough for another little guy (in the context of the Olympics) being to do this. He also thought you could have explained your partnership idea a little better.

I like how you build a story……..you are one of the few who acknowledged the need for ‘fame building’. I like how you state what your approach was….simply understand the audience and relate the opportunity to the Olympics. Few were as crisp as this.

I personally love you look for a uniting thought that connects craft beer segments…but I did want you to say why this was important. And I love the fact you get to a real category problem – most craft beer is overpriced and tasted crap. There’s a real value in bigness and reliability – if it’s ‘counter culture’ enough.

So I really like the ‘little guy’ thought personally, that amateur thought is great. Just wonder if ‘following your heart against the flow and doing what you love’ is a richer thought that ‘the little guy’. That might give you a more memorable point of view on the Olympics, you’re on the side of the underdogs, or the folks who don’t have the funding or infrastructure, just the passion and joy.

Thought this might get you out the ‘America’ hole others have got into, and made it very Sam Adams------went with his gut and the brand is about doing what you love and being creative.

Reeaaally close.

So your reasons to believe are solid, but I wonder if championing other craft beers and the category in general with the craft beer Olympics will get in the way of people liking Sam Adams, v reminding them why they like smaller, cooler independents, but I might have misunderstood what you’re trying to do.

Buzzfeed seems sensible, the timeline and overall plan makes sense, video and partnerships feel sensible, really sensible, and will do great reach and frequency numbers. It just feels a little ‘native’ without that ‘fuck me that’s interesting moment’. And you don’t justify the partners enough….I know they make sense, but you’re talking to clients…they need to be know WHY they’re buying what they’re buying.

This nearly went somewhere amazing, some gold in here, just ended up a little ‘solid’. But solid is a lot better than ‘mental’!!!

Matt

Gareth thought the ‘celebrate when both countries win’ thing has legs, but he wasn’t sure the partnership brought it to life. Rob thought there was lots of good thinking, but the media strategy needed more focus…and he wasn’t sure how the ‘double win’ mechanic would work.

I thought this was maybe a bit ‘bullet pointy ‘ and could have told a story more. There was lots of great analysis, but you’re making work out lots of stuff for myself. For example, I THINK you are saying there’s a scale opportunity in national pride, but I’m not totally sure….and on this point, is this a bit too wide for a medium sized brand?

Anyway. I like that you flip what lots of people have been talking about…USvUK, and make it win/win. Clever.

The core strategy of optimising around key times is sensible, but my problem with this is, despite the fact your idea is fresh, it’s harder to cut through at a time when everyone will be celebrating and less fussed about brands!!! Pimm’s O clock is a good example, but that establishes a usage occasion ( a new one for the brand sort of) whereas you’ve picked one of the most cluttered ‘moments’ you possibly could!!

The media planning is solid and sensible around your jumping off point, but I question that jumping off point!! Overall, while the campaign is very Olympics, it doesn’t feel that ‘Sam Adams’ to establish a new brand, that’s the most important bit!!!

Prof Duncan

Now, you mention you’re totally new to planning and look forward to being torn apart. That isn’t the point of all this, it’s to provide constructive feedback.

Now Rob applauds you for saying, “This Olympics thing is a stupid idea”. You clearly explain why, but don’t really say what you would do instead. He thinks you will win respect with honest advice, but they have a real business issue that means they need to do something…the reality of global work is that it’s more important to be seen to be doing what you’re asked, than what is right. The trick is do what’s right and make it look like you’re doing what has been asked!!! To quote Rob, find the supermarket that sells the most craft beer and do an Olympics joint promotion!!. Great integrity, but you need to offer and alternative! Gareth said pretty much the same thing.

Now , from my point of view, a word on style. Delivery is everything. You are making a very grown up submission here, so maybe the Spartan nature of Word makes sense. But it needs to beautifully written and really crisp and clear, you don’t quite do that. You need your killer points to really, really land.

So, to the actual submission, style aside, your reasons not to do it are well thought out. I just don’t agree that waiting is credible, what you’re really saying to your client is ‘do nothing’. You might have said do something BEFORE. You might have said what you could have done after….but I venture that after spending a hefty chunk of money on the sponsorship and planning in distribution and God knows what they’ve promised suppliers, they HAVE to do something. To Rob’s supermarket point, you’d be amazed how slapping the 5 rings on some POS can galvanise a supermarket partner or get you noticed with passive shoppers. Even spending SOME of the money and saving it for a quieter time might have gone down well.

So full marks for your moral approach to this, but there is a world of brand politics and distributons and sales planning to get around.

Also, my own view is that there is always a way and I wouldn’t just give up. You’re right, people don’t care about sponsorships, but if you add real value and make them care, it can work, people don’t care. I agree with discernment and drinkers and not drunks………. Wonder if you had worked out what might have worked for discerning people, stuff only they would understand in a hurricane of the usual crap, where you might have got.

One the the biggest companies in the world…mostly unheard of as a brand…PandG did some great work in the last Olympics for Mums – totally fresh and unheard of before. On the budget you had I might have done a partnership with Mumsnet for example. I just think something about quality, not quality (how craft beer is drunk) would have been great and, as it happens, a great view on how athletes should train for the Olympics………and moderation is a culturally big subject in the UK at the moment.

Just to clear, as a total novice as you suggest, well played on the bravery!!

July 05, 2016

Okay, here is the first chunk of feedback. Sorry it's taken so long, judges have been rushed off their feet. I know you have day jobs also, so massively played to have stuck to the deadline while some of us took longer.

There will be three posts. This is the first half of individual responses. Then I'll post the rest. Finally, overall thoughts and a winner selected.

First, let say, this was a hard task. Think about content, think about media, think about a brand and overcome a significant challenge. It reflects the kind of brief's we're all seeing more of, and the blur of who does what in different organisations. Well done everyone for having a go. There great elements in all the responses.

I hope you find the feedback honest, constructive and useful. If you want to challenge any of it, feel free, you can even have your counter arguments published on here if you like.

So, first wave of feedback.

Don't beat me up for spelling and grammar, the objective is to get this out to everyone!!

You'll find the submissions on my slideshare. Some have asked to keep their work private, so not all will be published.

Bryan

This will be a theme that occurs more than once. It’s good you’re precise, that you don’t waffle, but have a think how you might excite your reader, do some storytelling.

I like you have done some homework, that you are looking for the connection between the brand, Olympics and target…and really good you are looking at what the audience is actually interested in.

I’m waiting for you to conclude on this analysis, what’s your point. I find a killer point helps around here – ‘this brief is all about’ ‘the opportunity here is’. Is it something to do with quizes?

Really intriguing fact about the chests of tea – but the link the task in hand and the challenge of relevant Olympic content feels a little tenuous.

And you seem to be trying to do a lot with the budget. You’re competing for attention in a cluttered Olympics environment, I’m looking for one core idea the content and the media can build off.

I think this is about a Pub Quiz but you really need to provide that focus, argue for it and put in in the back of the net. You seem to be forcing beer with ‘drunk history’ and that’s the only role I really see for that ‘dropping of chests moment’. I only see a link between pub quizzes and Olympics because both are competitive….if you have talked about the history ‘good spirited competition a bit more, that would have been great.

I like you owning an occasion, the pub quiz, really efficient, but you needed to be even more single-minded about this.

I like that your plan has some phasing in, that it sort of aligns with drinking occasions in the home (pub quiz telly) and actually in pubs…but then out-door makes it feel expensive and you haven’t factored in the cost of the free beer, or the work of the small UK Sam Adams team to deliver it!!

So there are lots of interesting threads here, I just wanted some killer points, a concise summary of your strategy, a leaner plan and some theatre!

Rob really liked your intriguing ‘chests in the sea’ point, but wanted you to do more with it really make your submission more exciting.

Gareth echoed many of the points above and wondered if you might have written in longhand, to tell your story, rather than bullets. He wondered if you should have interrogated the audience more and challenge the brief….it told you young professionals, is this right? Gareth doesn’t think you found a hook that showed why they might ADOPT the brand, you only shared what they did, not what they care about!!!

Liana

Gareth pointed out that the stuff in your appendix was amazing. I agree – it really builds your argument, but it comes too late!!!

I enjoyed your catastrophising of the brief – we need to really cut through. Impact if you like (which by the way can be real challenge if you haven’t got a decent TV budget).

But then your insight feels like quite a generalisation. I love you recognise it’s tough for this generation and they’re focused on getting to where they need to be, but I question dreams, for the UK audience right now, it might have created more impact to discuss the fact that they don’t have time for dreams, they’re fighting to make sky high rents, or afford the deposit for an overpriced house.

I sort of like you go against this and tap into the human need to dream with the current pressure to think of the everyday like never before, but ‘brewing your dreams into reality’ feels like some good writing overcoming the fact you haven’t as yet linked the brand to the Olympics are the audience in meaningful way.

You get there with the Olympics making dreams a reality, but I don’t get the role for Sam Adams in this.

That said. The media thinking feels great in terms of reaching the audience. But I wonder, as this is an unfamiliar brand, in a cluttered time, if you could have planned something with more impact, but I can see how this might work, if only your content was a little more distinctive. You’re looking to build brand salience here, I think that means something unique and provocative, dreamers perhaps feels a bit like what lots of other brands might do for the Olympics.

As we said, much of the appendix stuff is quite compelling and you may have missed a trick by not building on your point about the need for craft and creativity. That quote about loving what you do is ace, and a missed opportunity. You can’t train for the Olympics if you don’t love your sport (as a former international athlete I can tell you it’s too hard otherwise), our young audience demands job satisfaction and stimulation on work…and culturally there is a wide cohort of young people in jobs they don’t like wishing for something more, as know from Nike, sport is an outlet for unfulfilled dreams. If you’d focused on this a bit more, that brand insight is brilliant, your great attempt would have been transformed into excellence!.

Rob wondered why Sam Adams has the right to talk about dreams, not realising you had a great answer in the founder!!

Anna

First off, Gareth wanted to praise you for writing, rather than bullets. Also, clearly articulating the challenges. Audience insight interesting---I really like it too…building a bridge between mainstream explorers and craft drinkers. Gareth wondered if the chain of logic to the idea was missing, but we’ll come back to that.

Rob loved the idea of ‘Chap Olympiad’ (did you know Frey Bentos once sponsored darts players) He thought American V British behaviour had potential, even though it has been done before, if you could do it in a fresh way, it could be interesting. By the way, he thought Boston was maybe the ‘England of America’ anyway.

For my money, great you get to the core challenge…folks need to ADOPT the brand., even better, you go further and show us it’s about credibility.

Now, it was me, I’d have held off with the key slide about unabashed American beer. This is well written, but my immediate response is that there is nothing more ‘American’ the Budweiser. I would want to see that ‘revolutionary bit’ developed a little, the founder stuff is great, but also maybe ‘the boston tea party’.

Really, really love the solid numbers and very sensible widening of the audience, this great and chimes with the Byron Sharpe stuff about targeting the whole market.

So I was let down when your analysis of them boiled down to ‘relax and have fun’ It’s just too generic. There is a lot going on in the lives of these people, not least the fact they’re looking for outlets of fun in a more serious world, which might give your insight a little more context, but I wanted to see you relay back to that ‘Unabashly American’ core. You don’t really.

But I happen to think your point about British patriotism is really interesting in the context of the Olympics….we find celebrating success and being proud of our country hard. I think everyone was surprised how 2012 went.

So actually like that ‘let go and be a bit crazy;’ thinking, you don’t set it up with your audience, but nearly every piece of research on this audience describes the tension between their work ethic and need for escape.

So I ended up liking your strategy, even though your logic doesn’t get you there….it might well have.

My struggle is the role for the brand. It needs to have broad appeal, but unabashed excitement feels a little ‘lowbrow’ when this need to be ‘mainstream sophistication’ – I guess a modern version fo Stella with ‘reassuringly expensive’. There is something great about Sam Adams talking about a world without limits, celebrating creativity and wonder. This is very American, but more specific and might have unlocked something else...we admire Americans sense of ‘wow’ while we’re uptight as you say, I wonder if celebrating independence and doing things another way, or to simply enjoy things might have been a key…and could have been very Olympics, as my own view is that there are always upstarts in every games ,not to mention athletes who obviously love the sport rather than being robots. Maybe this could come down to ‘work hard, but make sure you love it’

Anyway, I’m going on a bit!! Culture clash is nice thought, as Rob said, the trick is make it unique.

The media planning, role for channels and ideas I think are very good. While ‘OTT’ feels not quite right, your thinking to deliver it feels great. It’s efficient, involving and very, very well thought out.

I like the chap Olympiad, it’s the kind of lovely irony that makes the brand a little highbrow. I’m not sure it’s ‘OTT’ actually, but that might just be me.

One final thing, in your phasing, you’re ‘get people to feel like they did in 2012’ feels really rich and could have been the basis for your whole strategy!! As you say, there is a cultural whole in the UK where we rarely find social ice breaker to break our social dysfunction, while Americans live to be patriotice, and our target is searching for outlets of escapism.

Anyway, lots in here, lots of bit of gold, create analysis of the real opportunity, but it’s not quite watertight and it doesn’t feel quiet relevant to Sam Adams as BRAND, rather than relevant to America.

Rachel Chew

Gareth thought it was brave to challenge the audience in the brief, but you case doesn’t have enough evidence. Packaging a good ideas, but struggled on the partnerships. We’ll come back to this, but he wasn’t sure how smart leveraging the UK brewing link was. Rob liked the discovery of ‘Britain’s oldest brewer’ but then struggled with a limited budget having to promote two brand names.

Now, I really like your point about the Olympics being social………and very male.

I REALLY like how you’ve decided to position the audience…not enough advertising these days give people a clear idea of WHO else buys it, when so much ‘beer’ is stupid and male, this is strong.

I just wish, as Gareth says, you had some evidence, I happen to think you’re right though.

I also like how you provide a place to show up…….beer is social, so are the Olympics.

Now, with our low budget, the clutter in the market etc, I would say I wouldn’t try the ‘two brands thing’.

I would have followed through with your social thing. Great to talk about culture clash and UK v US, but you’re not the only one to do this and how would you make it unique. The fact about UK’s oldest brewer DOES make it different I think, but it doesn’t make Sam Adams authentic, and I’d venture, even a mass market craft beer needs to feel ‘real’.

That said, partnering with another brand is a nice idea, just not sure it’s ‘this brand’.

When we get to comms planning, like Buzzfeed and Youtube, packaging a great idea (if they can afford to do it, might cost more than the marketing budget) and a great mechanic. I don’t like promotions usually, they tend to attract current buyers more, but this one will build talk value and story.

I question America’s Got Talent. The context is right for your idea, but it feels a little ‘lowbrow’ for a craft beer and it’s maybe too niche to reach your audience. Media needs to reflect what the brand is about, even if all the audience watches this programme, I wonder if it will create the wrong impression.

Your overall plan holds together, but Team GB and Team USA will be well out of reach for the budget.

So great discovery about the brand in the UK, but it might get in the way of what you want to achieve. Love the ‘social’ train of thought you begin, you should have followed this through!!!

Tarka Rose

While I appreciate hard numbers and such are not available to everyone, a response as brave as yours requires some.

I like your point that this project needs sacrifice – we just can’t reach everyone with the world and his wife – but sacrifice was already in the brief, with young professionals a target a lot, lot smaller than the world and his dog. By all means, challenge the brief, but explain why.

There IS something really interesting about just ignoring all the US/UK stuff and embracing the international element of the Olympics (the coming together of the 5 continents as expressed in the rings) which could link to (at its best anyway, forget Trump!) the fact that America has always been a place that welcomed the world to its shores.

You just don’t really provide an argument for doing any of this. It would be just as efficient to target young professionals on the Google display network, or brief Unruly media to smash out an ace video campaign. It’s just not compelling.

There’s lots in this, but if you’re going to ignore the brief andf there is a better way of approaching stuff, you really need to convince folks that’s true!!!

Finally, unless I’ve missed something, you need to build a target audience that will drink an American craft beer.

June 24, 2016

Consequently I’ve got quite fast and quite thin - and now tend to spend more than a couple of quid on kit that will make me go faster. Lighter wheels actually make me go quicker, deep rims on said wheels cut through the wind when I go over 20 miles an hour, which is more frequent than a man of my age might expect.

Controversially, as far as my wife is concerned anyway, I also own a couple of ‘aero jerseys’. Skintight tops that don’t flap in the wind and manage air turbulence. I haven’t the foggiest if these actually make go faster, but here’s the thing…because I feel faster, I go faster.

They’ve tested skin-suits on cyclists and found that the ones with bad design, that do naff all to slice through air resistance, make them go faster as they BELIEVE they will.

That’s right, you can con yourself into being better than you are. For a planner and agency folk in general, that’s massive.

Because the other things about all this overpriced cycling gear is incremental gains. Lots of little changes and adjustments can add up to a lot.

Your clothes, dressing like you think a brilliant planner should dress, will probably make that presentation easier to write, or put you on top form for that critical meeting. For some that might mean a corduroy jacket and spectacles. Others, I’m afraid think it means Birkenstocks and Queen T-shirts. But whatever works.

Your environment. I can be very critical of agencies who insist on locating themselves in Shoreditch, Manchester’s Northern Quarter or The Meat Packing District. I believe they need to be closer to where real people live and feed off that. But then again, if you believe you’re in a place full of creative energy, it will drive you forward in a way working in non-descript business park will not. There’s plenty of evidence working in a buzzing city makes you naturally better at creativity and ideas.

Your office. It’s easy to laugh at impossibly well designed, achingly cool offices, but they do help, as long as they’re places you can relax and flourish in, that foster collaboration and allow space to think alone. They don’t have to cost the earth, but they do have to suit you. I guess, whatever you think a brilliant agency looks like, make it look like that and it will actually make you a little more brilliant.

Your work-space and tools. Surround yourself with quality and what you think clever, creative people like and enjoy and it will rub off on you. If you think they drink amazing coffee, make sure you get an aero press. Overpriced fancy notebooks? Do it. Walls you can write on? Feel free.

Real incremental gains. But it’s not just the placebo effect, there lots of little things you can do that actually do work.

Choose your colour wisely. A blue room fosters deep thinking, a green room fosters creativity (the light wavelengths work on your brain in different ways). So put some green into your workshop. Put pot plants around the office.

Make caffeine widely available, it actually does stimulate brain function.

Read lots about everything. Ideas are just new connections between different things, the more you have in your brain, the more likely a new connection will form.

Enforce time outs. The subconscious works on problems for you. Which means you need to not think about stuff for a while as it does its work.

Talk to lots of people about your project. The mirror neurons fire when you talk to someone else, you see your work from another perspective and enables you to edit and precis a lot quicker. I often find a have a maddening ‘smudge’ of an idea or direction and talking someone else through it usually results in them saying, “So what you mean is…” Most of my propositions where written this way when I was in a creative agency.

Anyway, whatever works for you probably works, no matter what others might think.

June 10, 2016

What you put is directly related to what you put out. If you're reading the same stuff as everyone else, you'll do the same stuff as everyone else.

Cultivate interesting aquaintances. The more you hang out with people who do different stuff to you, the better. There's nothing more dull than talking about brand models with a bunch of planners. And in general, if you want to be great, be around great people, some of their magic will rub off on you.

Avoid routine at all costs. Sorry Big Networks Who Like To Sell a Process and Keep Everything the Same, but if you work in the same way, you'll always do the same work. That goes for your daily routine, do different things in different orders. Sameness breeds sameness.

Always operate at the edge of your comfort zone. A really great way of working, or presentation structure or whatever always suffers from the law of diminishing returns. Mix it up, try aspects of the job you're not good at. When I was a swimmer, I would always train with people just a little faster than me, in time I caught up, then it was time to move on.

Booze doesn't make you interesting. It can release a few inhibitions, sometimes it can magnify what's inside, but that's it.

Great coffee and tea however, work a treat. They increase endurance, sharpen the brain. Don't waste time on the crap stuff though. Filter coffee as a minimum, tea made in a warmed pot (Yorskshire Tea if you can). Surround yourself with quality and it seeps into your work.

Be proud of your quirks. Agencies try and iron out the differences between people and get them working the same. This is dumb. Their needs to shared standards, but I'm never going to measured and emotionless, as some planners are, I can't help but be enthusiastic and get excited about things. Some planners are incredibly cheerful and clever. I'm neither, I just manage to say a few things simply. This is not for everyone, certainly not every client, but the ones who like me, tend to like me a lot. An old boss of mine was a force of nature, never suffered fools, bludgeoned some clients through force of personality. Some loved her, some detested her. Some planners naturally distill and less is very much more for them. I tend to stick around people I trust and throw all sorts of stuff around, they tell me the 10% that isn't dumb. You can't pleas everyone, unless you're dull, but you can please a few people a hell of a lot by being yourself and working out how to make that fly.

Be good at asking questions. Many planners are shy and fear small talk (I am for sure). Most people like talking about themselves, so get good at asking questions and listening. People will love your company. Be a bit more courageous in meetings and ask the difficult questions, the ones that make people reconsider or re-think. Like, "What is the actual objective?". You'd me amazed how many times I've needed to ask this question.

Have a thing. It's dead useful if people remember you for something other than work. Something makes people see you differently. For me it's the obsession with proper tea. For someone else in my office, he's a semi-professional rugby player with a heart condition.

Go on a journey. Something that annoys you, something that you really want to sort out, something you've always wanted t happen. Set out to make it a reality, do it with zeal. Enthusiasm and drive are contagious, it will influence the actual job and people will be drawn to your energy. I'm a quest to stamp out crap caffiene in every interaction in my personal and professional life for example. I'm training to do a 70 mile bike race in three and a half hours. It's not much, but it's a daily drive people seem to respond to. A friend of mine is hellbent on building a charity that gives free bikes to kids recovering from cancer.

Ignore this list, people who follow guides rather than finding their own way become dull (see point 3!!!)

May 09, 2016

Of course, really good ideas defy being put in a box - you just know it's good, you then need to figure out why, and how you can make it easy for the client to buy it it (it won't create work for them, it's easy to sell to their bosses because it's based on solving real business problems, it's easy to evaluate).

However, we live in world where too many brands are doing stuff because they can, rather than they should. They're inventing products and added value services no one wants, making 'content' no one wants to watch and basically doing stuff that is chosen for being cool and innovative, rather than what will transform business success.

This might be useful for the Planning School of the Web stuff by the way...where ideas will need to overcome budget and content and sponsorship mean you need to give more than you take to have a hope of anyone caring!!

Also, with so many stakeholders involved in making things happen these days - I worked on something recently that involved the creative agency, the digital agency, the media agency, the media owner, the content agency, the PR agency and the sports marketing agency - a creative/content/media/media owner brief or whatever no longer works as a basis to review ideas on the table.

This just might work.......

Does the product or brand actually have a clear part to play in the idea? You see too much stuff these days with a very tenuous link to what the client actually does or sells. People MAY engage with it, but it will do NOTHING for the business unless there is a link between the idea and the client business. And please don't come to me with 'brand awareness', I'm very aware of Donald Trump, but want nothing to do with him

Will it actually create some sort of change in how people think, feel or behave towards the brand or product? Advertising in all it's forms is really about removing reasons not to buy in the short term and delivering a DISTINCTIVE imprint in people's hearts and minds, so the brand comes front on mind in buying situations.

There are only really four macro roles for communication - you're either creating impact with people not interested in the brand or the category, changing what people who have an impression already think or feel (re-positioning), activating brand interest into action, or reinforcing what people think and feel already....and creating a new reference point hopefully (this coffee brand is about being a grown up...but did you know we have a more authentic heritage than you may have thought)

Others would say you should look at the business objective, define what that means in terms of what you need people to do they are not doing now, and then work out the most efficient way of doing that.

Does it get anyone remotely excited? If no one internally, or partner agencies, can be bothered to be excited, or want to make the idea happen, can you expect any real people with proper jobs and a billion things to look at and do on their phones to give a monkeys? Thought not. David Abbot once said, "Tell people about the product in way that cannot be missed". Don't forget the 'cannot be missed' part. A useful guide is if various stakeholders want to start building on it and doing their own little versions.

Does it give a much as it takes (or even more??) I mean does it feel like it's adding to what people really care about? Might people talk about it a bit? Does it feel bigger that the brand or category and add something to real life? Would you share it on Twitter? Brands need to accept no one likes people talking about themselves and we have moved from retailers and brands in positions of power to consumers. Show some respect!

First point, if you work in an ad agency, don't expect to making ads forever and perhaps expect to be working for a media owner soon.

It also means that whatever kind of planner you are (and for me there is only one - the person who identifies the task for communications and how to achieve that task using evidence based insight that should include a sweet spot between consumer, market and brand/product) you need to be thinking about a wider skill-set.

If you work in a digital agency, clients seem to expect decent channel planning, perhaps more that 'creative planning' (whatever that is...maybe the dreaded 'ad tweaking').

There are more standalone communications or brand planning shops these days where clients expect not just creative strategy etc but channel recommendations.

Then of course, there's media agencies. Long held in great suspicion by creative agencies, as they seem to want to do the creative and own more of the lead agency status.

But then again, I'd wager creative agencies lost the automatic right to the top table by forgetting to talk about business and navel gazing more and more. No one cares if a brand model should be about purpose, community or whatever, especially shareholders, they care about silly things like business growth, margin and selling things.

There's no point moaning about clients spending more money on short term, measurable stuff like PPC and search when, basically, it means youve lost the argument, or where too complacemt for too long.

Anyway.

I work in a media agency now and increasingly find I'm asked, at the very least, to collaborate with a creative agency in a partnership fashion when it comes to leading strategy. However, I also find more and more that clients leadership and ideas as much as plans...and this often entails ideas about content and working with all sorts of partners to deliver this, from folks who own media channels, to vloggers and even entertainers.

Now, lets be clear, a well thought out, barn-storming ad campaign is still the most efficient use of money, but as people become hard to reach on TV and the costs are going up, while more folks block digital ads great, creative thinking across the entire piece and finding a way to show in people's lives is becoming more important than ever, and in many cases, media folks get landed with more and more of the responsibility.

So this is about a brief where the thinking is about channels, media and out-smarting the competition when you haven't got the luxury of a massive budget. This is what I seem to do with my day to day more and more, and what planners in any agency have to think about now.

And to make it more current, we’re going to build it around the 2016 Olympics, the event every four years that sees an avalanche of sponsorships, ads and God knows what.

And it’s a really simple brief.

Your client is Sam Adams Beer. An authentic Craft Beer Company based in Boston (the United States) - Google it.

The UK marketing team has come direct to you, a media agency with a brief. There are no agency competitors, basically, if they like your response, you get the business.

They have come to a media agency because they believe they’ll get great communications strategy, ideas and effective channel selection- and they don’t have any creative agency and want you to sort it. This is not a rare thing these days.

The brief is as follows:

“Background

Sam Adams is looking to grow aggressively, taking advantage of the global growth in authentic craft beers. To help us with this, we have agreed a deal with to be a bottom tier sponsor of the Olympic Games. This has been a considerable investment for us and we need to extract maximum value.

The UK has been identified as a key growth market for us. We have a budget of 400,000 US dollars to spend to activate our Olympic sponsorship and build our brand.

We have good distribution in all UK large supermarkets and upmarket bars.

What we need from you

We know that 400K isn’t a lot of money in what is going to be a very cluttered environment.

We want an integrated plan from you that will give us the confidence you will make a dent in the universe. Our bottom tier status means we don't even get any visibility on perimeter boards or anything, it's just that really prized permission to use the logo.

We don’t have any credibility in the UK yet, and therefore we’re looking for a strategy built around partnerships. Who this might be we leave to you.

We also have no extra budget for any creative work and have no assets as the global assets are very US focused and, we feel, not that relevant for the UK…so partners will need to help us create content.

We don’t have any specific phasing in mind – we just want to know that by the end of September 2016 we have seen an uplift in our UK fortunes

How we will judge your response

Show us how you will kick start brand consideration – but more importantly, how you build fame and get our brand talked about, as we are worried we won’t cut through – we don’t think we’re looking for TV spots here, especially as we haven’t any creative and we’ll get lost.If you're going to talk TV, you'll need to be creative and convince us.

Show us you understand our brand and will activate in a way that is relevant to the Olympics and what it might mean to the UK –we’re looking to reach as much of our market as we can

Show us how you will connect with what our target market (busy young men and women with a good level of disposable income) care about. We want them to adopt our brand, not just buy it.

We haven’t a UK website or any digital hub and have no plans to build one. Please show us how you might get around this (we’re keen to have some sort of presence with a partner)

We’re not looking for TV ads, but we’re keen to have a plan with video in it

Crystal clear thinking as to the best phasing for this campaign, in terms of before, during and after the games

Format

We’re in Boston in four weeks time with the global marketing team. We’d like a written response that not only blows out socks off, but one that we will be able to share with the rest of the global team. So it needs to be simple, concise and utterly compelling. It’s up to you if that’s powerpoint, PDF or whatever.

Don’t worry too much about the nuts and bolts in terms of frequency curves and such, what we want to see:

Clear exploration of our opportunity and what challenges we need to overcome

What your jumping off point is – some sort of insight (consumer, culture, market)

A clear idea

How your channels selection will bring it to life….and what content you and your recommended partners will create”

Some clues for you

The budget they're giving you could get a pretty decent TV programme sponsorship, an ad funded programme with change to spare for digital, throwing the kitchen sink at something with Buzzfeed or partnering with Youtube stars….don’t worry TOO much about knowing the ins and outs of UK media costs, channel selection... integration and great ideas are a must though

The size of an audience interested in the Olympics specifically, v something bigger that sport and the Olympics in general are relevant is an interesting thing to consider, as is the role of craft beer in the lives of the audience.

Some links to sponsorship activation and partnerships courtesy of WARC are below, free of charge for a while:

April 19, 2016

So we went to stay with Mum and Dad in Cornwall last week. I always treasure these times.

Mum and Dad are getting on, when you begin to realise they won't be around forever, you make the most of the time that little bit more.

It's one thing to become a parent, or have a moderately serious job. You think you may be all grown up, but until you emotionally reach the moment YOU will be the only backup in the family, I'm not sure you're totally mature. This is a very personal perspective of course, coming from a loving, supportive family unit etc. Some people have to grow up a lot quicker I guess.

Of course, these weeks are for me to spend proper time with my children. They are four and six now, Evie, our youngest is at that point when she's about to become a girl, rather than a little girl and you want to get as much of it as you can, before it's gone forever.

We always find when we go away with them, that they seem to change right in front of your eyes. Evie seems to have come home with even less of the 'little' in her and Will, our six year old is suddenly having much more intricate conversations and we can see in his developing features, more of the young man he will sadly become all too soon.

I'm not sure if it's because we have the chance to stop and watch them, without having to go off and do the usual stuff working parents running a house do, or the fact they respond to so much more time with us.

Either way, it serves as a reminder that no child will grow up remembering how clean the bathroom was, or how great Daddy's powerpoint was, or how well Mummy ran her team.

They'll remember how much fun they had, what we all talked about and how loved they felt.

February 16, 2016

Let’s be clear. Winning awards is nothing to do with telling the truth. It’s mostly about what you can post rationalise to fit whatever people are looking for. For IPA Effectiveness Awards for example, judges are looking for econometrics, some sign that above the line advertising still works and something new to tell the industry. The IPA is mostly about making adland look grown up and commercial – and create a bank of data for the IPA DataBank which will always tell you creativity pays back and do TV. The APG Awards are looking for some sign that ‘planning’ had some influence on the creative work and, again, you have something new to tell the industry. In essence, the APG Awards exist to make planners look like a necessary evil rather than an unnecessary evil. And make planners feel creative. Media Awards are all about evidence and some sign of innovation. Unlike most ‘creative awards’ where it can just submitting the work with a little background explanation, they’re looking for actual evidence you made a difference to a brand’s fortunes, they hate brand tracking and want actual evidence of sales and behaviour change. But as they don’t want econometrics, you can always find a sales story in the data somewhere. Boiling it down....., because media is boring, the direction of media awards is to try and make media interesting, but more grown up and serious than creative awards.Creative awards judges are looking for something new and original. Something that hasn’t been done before. They couldn’t care less if it sold anything, or indeed of anyone saw it, as long as it rewrites the creative lexicon. Increasingly, unless you want to enter craft skills sections, this means avoiding actually entering ads and doing lots of social media/events/stunts that four people saw. The essence of creative awards is partly making creatives feel good since 80% of their work is destroyed by suits or planners before it gets to the client, then the rest is mauled by client committees and pre-testing. Leaving 1% of work running close to what was hoped for. The rest of creative awards is down to impressing creative directors at agencies you want to work at.

The essence of all awards is to pretend everything is perfect. Strategy, then creative or buying the plan etc, then production works like clockwork. When of course nothing happens until the day before the presentation and the idea that ran came from a rebrief after the client binned the original work. The mis-quote the X Files, The Truth is Out There but it’s not in awards papers.

So, here’s a potted guide to winning awards..........

If it’s a written paper, write a story. Catastrophise at the beginning, the brand faces a massive challenge, put in some progressive complications (research made us realise we were facing something far worse), throw in a lightning bolt of discovery, base it on a universal truth (we realised this was all about the universal truth that music is form of rebellion to young people) then make sure, when you set out what you actually did, litter with as much gold as you can, focus on what was interesting, rather than what worked…and make the resulting evidence prove it was the interesting stuff that worked. Then write a moral of the story that is something that matches the agenda for the body running the awards…something they would like everybody to do or take on board.2. Make sure you build in evaluation into a funky campaign or plan when you are running it….and make sure it measures the cool stuff. I’ve seen some of very best campaign not even get nominated because there was no evidence in the results.3. Of course, if you’re entering creative awards, no one cares if it worked, but you need to make sure the best stuff runs. Make friends with the media agency, make sure there is stuff on the plan the client doesn’t care about and doesn’t cost much. And make friends with whoever is doing production. If it ran and it was one off, it still ran and it still counts. Juries are getting wise to this and to be fair, the better awards events have an agenda to celebrate real work, but even then, it’s the little retail press campaign that ran alongside the dull predictable telly that might do well. 4. Get the client on board if it’s a written case study. Write it early, send it early. They will change it and think you need to reflect what actually happened….leave time for careful negotiation. 5. You need to get innovation and ace stuff into the sell of the client presentation. The first challenge is getting stuff to happen. So make innovation essential and at the heart of your thinking, not a nice to have. 6. Writing this stuff is a real pain in the arse, sometimes you are writing papers a year after the stuff ran. So every time you think you have an award winner, write a one pager – catastrophe, insight, what you did, why it worked..and what’s clever bit. It will save you lots of time and heart ache later one.

Awards do matter by the way. They are good for morale, clients really like them and brilliant for PR. Seriously, clients tend to select new agencies based on work they’ve seem.

But, like the industry, just don’t make a life or death thing.It’s only life or death if you get too drunk and the actual do and tell your bosses what you really think of them (trust me).

February 15, 2016

Someone, I forget who, once said everyone is two people. You have the person inside your head, how you think you are, how you think you come across to others. Exhibit A, the bloke in the media agency pushing mid-40s. He thinks the 36 inch waist squeezed into 32 inch designer jeans, paired with the Hugo Boss blazer comes across as smart casual power dressing. While the 32 inch waist size shows he’s still young and good looking. Exhibit B, the creative director (or Kevin Anderson) rocking the skin-tight black t-shirt to make him look young and edgy.But then you have the other person, the one everybody else sees. Mr Media Agency, you just look like Jeremy Clarkson. Mr black t-shirt, man boobs were never a good look, not even in the 90’s where your outfit looked okay. Just as the charismatic, off the cuff presenter (in her head) just goes in too much and looks really unprepared to the poor recipients of her nuggets of gold. Arguably, there is a third one these days. The one in social media, that is maybe even more divorced from reality, but let’s not go there.Then there are the planners. Who, on the outside tend to appear super calm, super open and generous all the time. No matter how you feel inside, you are the one who cannot lose your temper, have to earn your place in any meeting, have to look like you know what you are talking about even when you haven’t a clue and, know as much about everything as you can – be a super generalist, make the dullest subject matter seem interesting and, perhaps hardest of all, have to make the few gaps in others drawing breath count, as these are the only seconds you’ll get to say something. Inside of course, we get just as frustrated, just as angry, just as nervous, suffer just as much anxiety, get just as bored as much as anyone else. This constant disconnect between internal and external dialogue, constant edit, precis and distil and constant hoovering up information, no matter how banal has side effects outside of the job. In tricky family, or close friend situations, planner folk tend to assume the calm, conciliatory role. When everyone falls out at Christmas over Pictioanary, we tend to be reasonable ones who mediate between parties affronted over the unfairness of letting a seven your old write a word rather than draw, or the cousin who has one too many who offends Auntie Hilda by drawing some genitals. That said, like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, planners can go the other way. All that calmness at work can mean they have a very short fuse at home and can crack at any second. This is rare, as planners tend to let off the internal pressure cooker with a chosen outlet.Yep, most planners tend to do something which has nothing to do with planning out of the office. For some, that might be amateur dramatics, for others it might be venting spleen in a blog. Many find an outlet through sport. But rest assured, planners tend to have many outside interests. They may cultivate a persona of ‘being curious’ or ‘making sure they are interesting by being interested’- but mark my words, it’s all to do with making sure they don’t have melt down when someone tells them they’ve missed the breakfast serving by one minute. All that extra stuff outside the office, couple with the factory visits, the cultural research, having to know what a fifteen year old finds interesting, while understanding what the hell your cloud computing security B2B client actually does, means planners have tons of pointless knowledge. This puts planet sized weight on the shoulders whenever there is a quiz. If there is some sort of agency quiz night, planners will never vote for a department based team structure, the expectation to win is simply too great –especially from the head of planning who will almost certainly lose that calm exterior and go Michael Douglas after endless goading from their other bigwig colleagues. But the mixed teams structure can be a blessing – as planners are never allowed to get their round in, as they need to be present for every question. Of course, it also means they have bladder issues, as they also are not allowed to disappear for a piss. Dealing with unreasonable people become second nature though. You are so used to killing folks with kindness (Falling Down syndrome aside) planners are good at sneakily getting what they want.However, this doesn’t go as far as relationships. We’re so used to persuading everyone, rather than just saying it how it is, partners tend to walk all over us. Even worse, we’re so used to not making the decisions, it can be problematic when we are actually given a choice. I’m amazing at making my wife and friends think they’ve chosen the venue for a night out, or what we’re going to watch on telly, but when someone actually says it’s my choice, I melt like warm Nutella. Consequently, planning types tend to have very strong partners who know their own mind. Good thing too, if two planners got together nothing would ever get done, but at least they would never run out of conversation. This willingness to be led by others by the way, also means planners should never organise any family outings, stag do’s or mates nights out. Seriously, unless you want to turn to Prague and find your hotel was booked for next month, or be driven into the wrong country (I have done both), don’t ask a planner. On the other hand, if you’re going to get lost, get lost with a planner. We’re so used to it, we always deal with it pretty well. Finally, we’re back to where we started, the clothes. Planners needs to look smarter than the creatives, but less smart than the suits. So we’re great at nailing the smart casual thing.Unless it’s a media planner that is, the jeans, massive brogues, shirt and blazer is highly infectious and penetrates all levels of media.Working in certain postcodes means some exceptions too. Anyone working around Shoreditch gets really good at spending a month’s salary looking like a tramp. The general casualness of working attire also means that when you meet friends and family from work, it simply reinforces the impression we don’t have a proper job. When most folks in the pub are sporting a suit, or perhaps the dreaded chinos and suede shoes combo, turning up in £200 jeans and a Cat in the Hat t-shirt reveals you for the middle class dilettante you really are.